Well they have had it for 3 weeks now and cant fix the problem. Thus far they have replaced:

Drag link
Drag link ends
Steering box
Tracbar
Pitman arm
and corrected the alignment.

They could not duplicate the problem that I was experiencing until it had been there a week. Now we are on the third week and they are stumped on how to get it fixed. So I have not been able to drive my truck for almost a month and they are still throwing parts at it.

the service tech called yesterday and told me it may be in the rear of the vehicle?

Whats the next step? I really need my truck back.

 

Warranty work?

Tell them you need a loaner vehicle. They should accomadate you. If not then go up the chain of command until they do. Polite but firm.

Remember you always get more flies with sugar then you do with vineagar.

 

I don't know what year your truck is, but I have an '06 with the same issues and my dealer can't fix it. I am sick of dealing with it, so I'm going to fix it myself. I posted a thread about this problem, and got a reply from a guy that has the same problems and said he adjusted the front caster angle about 5.5-6 degrees positive and that was enough to get rid of it. I'm also going to put a leveling kit on my truck because I have the 350 and the rear sits about 2.5" higher than the front, and that guy said that can amplify the issues in the front end. I guess I don't even know what your problems are but I'm assuming they're the same as mine; steering wheel oscilates back and forth when hitting bumps (potholes, expansion joints, washboard etc.) at any speed, but more defined at higher speeds and/or the intensity of bumps. Was I right?

 

is it a bad wobble that is shaking your steering wheel or bouncing the truck around? or is it a bad vibration?

 

Yeah, but who wants a bunch of flies?

Sorry, I can never resist that one.

 

Have them change all the bushings too....

 

Do you have a steering stabilizer?

 

sorry guys here is a little more info. It is an 05 350 dually. The truck already has dual from stabilizers. it only has 30K miles on it.

The problem is after hitting a bump the truck shakes violently. Hit the breaks it gets worse, accelerate it gets worse. You need to let the speed bleed off to about 50-55 then it stops. During the shaking you can barely steer the truck. It actually sounds like the front end of the truck is going to fall off during the shaking. The dealer even told me last week it scared the cr*p out of them when it did it. They were prepared for the steering wheel ocsillation but not the shaking. In his own words "it feels like a massive earthquake within the truck"

 

I would investigate it for a possible "lemon law" infraction.

 

Hightempsilicone,

You didn't say if it was a 2wd or 4wd but, it sounds like ball joints or wheel bearings. There is a TSB out on how to properly check the ball joints and replace them if they are bad.

Sounds like the front end is shimmying, like they can do when the ball joints or king pins are bad.

I would run this by them. Also if they are just throwing parts at it instead of finding the cause and fixing it, you may want to find a better more qualified service tech.

Hope this helps

 

Oh please.

Lemon law only comes into play if the problem is repaired several times and keeps re-appearing later on, after multiple trips to the dealer. And then the dealer says they can't or won't fix it.

 

If it's a shaking up and down it's not death wobble. Death wobble is side to side steering wheel movement that also shakes the truck. That's a result of steering geometry. If it feels like more up and down shaking they should be looking at the springs and shocks. Good to see they are trying to work with you but you might want to take it up a notch and ask for the local Ford rep to look at your truck to see what can be done.

 

My 06 F350 4x4 does the same exact thing that all of the other trucks on this forum do with the steering wheel oscillation and the violent shaking. It is down right scary(as well as dangerous). I think i may actually know what the underlying problem is too. My hypothesis (as yet unproven) is as follows:

In my opinion the symptom not-so-fondly named "death wobble", in this particular instance, would be more appropriately classified as "bump steer". Bump steer is a very common occurance in lifted vehicles and is caused by steering geometry that is changed when you drop the front axle in relation to the frame of the truck. More specifically, it is directly related to the position of your steering centerlink in relation to the track bar.

Trac bar - 101. The trac bar is a rigid bar that extends from one side of the frame of the vehicle down to the axle on the opposite side of the vehicle. This keeps the axle firmly oriented under the vehicle, preventing it from shearing off under side loads. Without a trac bar, the only thing keeping your axle from going side to side are the bolts on the springs which are woefully under rated for that task. When you have a rigid track bar in place the axle acually moves side to side under the truck as the suspension compesses. This is because while the bar holds the axle firmly, it also forces it to travel in a mild arc. Your front axle actually moves side to side under the truck as much as an inch (under severe wheel travel) when the suspension compresses up and down over bumps. Bump Steer happens when the arc created by the axle differs from the arc created by your steering centerlink. The steering centerlink acts similar to a trac bar because as the suspension flexes, it too travels in an arc. When the axle is moving side to side becuase of the trac bar, the tires actually twist from left to right becuase of the arc created by the steering centerlink. So, if the axle moves an inch, and the steering centerlink only moves say 3/4 of an inch, this means that the tires are twisting left to right a few degrees simply because you hit a bump. This is felt in the steering wheel in mild cases as oscillation and in extreme cases as this wild violent shaking.

In order to minimize the effects of bump steer, you want to accomplish two things, one, you want your track bar to be roughly the same lenth as your steering centerlink, and two, you always want it to be perfectly parallel to your steering centerlink. Doing this makes the two travel in in the same arcs and minimizes bump steer yada yada. Getting back to the case in point. On the 05-06 superduty trucks, ( at least all the ones I have been able to examine) the track bar is approx. 6 inches shorter than the centerlink and where it mounts to the frame it is about an inch and a half too high in relation to where the centerling moints to the pitman arm. This translates into dramatically different arcs of travel and would seem to me to be a likely cause of the violent shaking on bumpy roads. I doubt that any amount of part swapping will do anything to resolve this problem becuase in my opinion, it is a design issue.

How to fix this problem? One could make a dropped trac bar mount for the frame side of the trac bar that would move the mointing point down around an inch and a half to make it parallel to the centerlink. This would not totally fix the problem, but would likely help. The last thing to do, and this would be difficult, but if one could adapt the 05-06 superdutys to use the tie rod ends and centerlink that the 99-03 superdutys used, this would mean a shorter overall centerlink and when combined with a lower track bar mount, it should virtually eliminate all bump steer.

My idea is based on a few assumptions which may or may not be correct.
1. The largest percentage of vehicles with this problem are 4x4 trucks.
2. Most of the vehicles that do it, do it right off the dealer lot (even if it doesn't happen isntantly is no reason that it couldn't, given the right set of bumps)
3. Many owners of 4x4 trucks do experience this problem to varying degrees
4. Dealers often have troubles repeating this problem because the issue is directly related to wheel travel on the passenger side of the truck. ( if you hit a bump on the drivers side, you will obviously feel the bump, but you won't have the axle traveling in an arc like you would if it hit a bump on the passenger side, so no bump steer)
5. Dealers often don't know a lot about steering geometry becuase they are an OEM shop. They don't do suspension mods so they haven't had to learn the sciences behind steering and suspension geometry like a custom 4x4 shop would, and therefore wouldn't even think to consider geomety as an issue.
6. Lastly, becuase so many people have this issue and none of the dealers have completely resolved it, to me that would indicate that it is not so much a faulty component issue, but would more likely be a design and engineering issue.

I plan on trying these ideas for myself, but until I finish remodeling my house, the wife says no big truck projects. So............unless someone else can try my ideas first it will have to wait till after christmas for me to do some in depth testing and modification to verify things. Any thoughts anyone?

 

reach under the truck and shake the u-joints on the front axles, the ones that are inbetween the ball joints at the steering knuckle. If they move around I bet that is your problem. My truck was doing that, and I would have to come to a complete stop before it would stop. What happens is the axles should spin freely in the hub, but if the seals are bad and the axle is able to flop around it catches and starts spinning, and since its off center it creates a bad vibration.

 

If you read his original post he has been missing his truck for over a month and they CAN'T fix it, you should read the reply you just wrote!!!